Bagram was built with Soviet help in the 1950s, when Afghanistan under Prime Minister Daoud turned to Moscow for arms. English Wikipedia records that President Eisenhower landed here in 1959 and was met by King Zahir Shah and Daoud himself — a reminder that for a few years both superpowers courted Kabul. By the 1970s the field was home to the air force’s MiG-21 regiment, the 322nd, and a Soviet-trained officer corps.

That officer corps made the Saur Revolution. On 27 April 1978, according to Wikipedia, Colonel Abdul Qadir "left by helicopter for the Bagram air base", took charge there and "organized air strikes on the royal palace", while tanks attacked in Kabul. Officers who resisted at the airfield were killed. Daoud died in the Arg that night. The death toll is disputed: Anthony Hyman gives 30 officers killed at Bagram alone, while Mohammad Nabi Azimi wrote that only about 40 people may have died in all; other estimates run far higher.

After the Soviet intervention of December 1979 Bagram became one of the main hubs of the Limited Contingent. Wikipedia lists the 108th Motor Rifle Division and the 345th Guards Airborne Regiment on or around the base, and the 368th Assault Aviation Regiment with Su-25s from October 1986 to November 1987. Afghan units remained alongside: the 322nd Fighter Air Regiment and the 321st Air Regiment, with three squadrons of MiG-21s still at Bagram in 1990.

The base’s role in Afghan politics did not end with the Soviet withdrawal of February 1989. During the failed coup of 6–7 March 1990, pilots loyal to the defence minister Shahnawaz Tanai attacked Kabul; three rockets landed near the Presidential Palace. On the afternoon of 7 March Tanai reached Bagram and fled by helicopter to Peshawar in Pakistan. In the civil war that followed, Wikipedia says, the Northern Alliance and the Taliban each held one end of the base from 1999, the Taliban within artillery and mortar range of the other side.

In early December 2001 the British Special Boat Service secured the airfield, and the US 10th Mountain Division followed. By mid-June 2002 more than 7,000 US and allied personnel were there, and by 2009 the base could hold about 10,000. The Air Force Historical Research Agency records the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing at Bagram from 26 July 2002, flying at various times A-10s, F-16s, F-15Es, C-130s and MC-12s on counter-terrorism missions; English Wikipedia adds EA-6Bs from 2003 and MQ-9s from 2014.

Bagram was also a detention site. The Parwan Detention Facility, completed in November 2009 with room for about 3,000 people, was transferred to Afghan control in 2012. The base was repeatedly attacked: a suicide bomber killed 23 people at the gate during Vice President Cheney’s visit in February 2007, and another killed at least four Americans in November 2016. In April 2013 a Boeing 747 freighter crashed on take-off, killing all seven crew.

US forces left Bagram during the night of 1–2 July 2021. Its new Afghan commander, General Mir Asadullah Kohistani, told Al Jazeera that his troops learned of it only in the morning, and looters ransacked barracks before they were expelled. On 15 August 2021, as the Islamic Republic collapsed, Afghan troops fell back and the Taliban took the base and freed the prisoners held there.

Bagram then became a symbol. In August 2024 the Taliban marked the third anniversary of their victory there. In September 2025 President Trump said the United States was trying to get the base back, citing its distance from Chinese nuclear sites; the Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid replied that Afghans would never hand their land to anyone, and on 7 October 2025 the Moscow Format meeting of regional powers called foreign military infrastructure in Afghanistan unacceptable. On 1 March 2026, during the Afghanistan–Pakistan war, Pakistani officials said they had destroyed aircraft on the airfield; Taliban officials said no damage was sustained. Satellite imagery reported by The New York Times showed a hangar and two warehouses destroyed.